Lotus target Q2 with rear wing upgrade for Brazil

F1 Fanatic round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Lotus aim to qualify better in Brazil with a new rear wing.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Lotus mount final big push to catch rivals (ITV-F1)

Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne: “Our race pace has been good all season, but we have not been able to match that in qualifying, and the update to the rear wing is designed to help us do that by improving the efficiency of our DRS.”

Ex-Williams man Thynne passes away (Autosport)

“Sheridan Thynne, who played a key role in the rise of the Williams Formula 1 team, has died.”

Sheridan Thynne 1939 – 2011 (Joe Saward)

“He first met Frank Williams in 1962, but it was not until 1979 that he was asked by Williams to use his business connections to raise sponsorship for the team. Thynne was the commercial boss of the team for the next 13 years, doing deals with companies such as British Leyland, ICI, Mobil, Canon and many others. He also did many of the negotiations with drivers.”

Honda to come back with McLaren? (GrandPrix)

“The respected German publication Auto Motor und Sport reports that Honda could be considering a technical collaboration with McLaren to start when F1 makes the move to small capacity turbocharged engines in 2014.”

Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.

Comment of the day

Rob Wilson was one of several people surprised to learn of Pedro de la Rosa’s impending F1 comeback with HRT:

Well, I didn’t see this coming either. As others have mentioned it seems like an intelligent move for the team and all things considered probably the best move, but personally I would have rather seen a fresh name in the sport rather than a 40-year-old Pedro de la Rosa.

It’s not a prospect that excites me, but I’m sure he’ll do just fine.
Rob Wilson

From the forum

Site updates

Apologies for yesterday’s brief downtime which was caused by a technical problem beyond our control, which has now been fixed.

Following Saturday’s article several further additions have been made to the F1 Twitter directory.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Clare MSJ, Dane, Rachel and Richard!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

The Prost team went into receivership ten years ago today. The team, which had raced as Ligier until the end of 1996 when it was taken over by Alain Prost, was never seen in F1 again.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

49 comments on “Lotus target Q2 with rear wing upgrade for Brazil”

  1. quote ot day is spot on for me!

  2. A dollar late and a dime short….Hoping to get into Q2 at the last race of the season says a bunch about the state of affairs in Formula One today. At least they are still trying and maybe some of it will carry over to 2012 and then they might even be a bit ahead of the others.

    The difference between the haves and the have nots remains the same year after year.

    1. Remember Team Lotus don’t have KERS this year. If they can make Q2 without it and get it working by next year they will be in a nice place

      1. Definitely. I just hope they get there by their own merits, rather than a faltering Williams or Toro Rosso.

  3. also the patch for the f12011 game is out on all formats.

  4. Heard a little story. Lewis going to Ferrari. I think Lewis would be much better than Alonso at Ferrari.

    1. As reported by the wonderful and reliable news source, The Daily Star.

      And with LH trailing FA despite being in what is considered a faster car, I don’t think many will agree with you.

    2. This is the only story I’ve seen on this so far and there is absolutely nothing in it to suggest it’s true. They couldn’t even be bothered to make up a blind quote:

      http://www.dailystar.co.uk/motorsports/view/221652/Ferrari-are-racing-to-pair-Lewis-Hamilton-with-Alonso-again/

      1. Guess the mutual uttering of respect by Alonso and Hamilton around the Abu Dhabi race emboldened the writer to spice up an uncontroversial, unsurprising, and unsubstantial view on Ham’s hit/miss season and on how Massa surely must be under pressure at Ferrari to get a bit more attention

        1. @bosyber I thought that Alonso/Hamilton exchange was overrated. If I was Alonso, beating Hamilton on points in an inferior car, I’d be talking him up, too…

          1. I agree. Of course, if Hamilton can take points away from BUT,WEB, that increases Alonso’s changes of still getting the 2nd place in the WDC.

            And Hamilton responding to it in the press-conference was just a way to talk up himself, and show Alonso it was heard and appreciated, I suppose.

            It did confirm nicely that perhaps those two aren’t so concerned with each other any more, having Red Bull and Vettel, and Button, to fight with, but I think we all knew that already :-)

  5. I loved Prost GP! I remember going to the autosport international the first time after they ceased to exist, and there were tons of Prost mugs dead cheap. 5 of them got snapped up, they’re still my favourite mugs!

    1. I used to be a fan, and I’m still a huge fan of Prost as a driver, but now I wish we still have the old Ligier…

  6. McLaren-Honda… yellow helmet driver… to much the same with the early nineties for me. although could be a very clever move by McLaren

    1. That’s still 3yrs away…Will Lewis still be there then??? Let the betting begin :P

  7. 10 years without the lovely blue cars. They were rubbish (appart from the JS45, which was basically a Ligier with a Prost badge), but they looked exquisite!

    come to think about it, the grid round those years was so colourful. Green from Jag, blue from Prost, yellow from Jordan, orange from Arrows, red from Ferrari, silver from Mclaren, black from Minardi, light blue from Benetton… ah, I feel so old!

    1. They were rubbish (appart from the JS45, which was basically a Ligier with a Prost badge), but they looked exquisite!

      Strictly speaking, the JS45 was a Ligier with a Prost badge which evolved from an evolution of the Benetton B195. The 1995 Benetton and Ligier chassis were virtually identical.

  8. I actually had a dream quite recently that Honda came back to F1 with McLaren, it’d be quite weird if it actually happened. But surely it can’t, McLaren want to be a lot more independent now that they’re a fully fledged sports car manufacturer, especially since they’re building their own road car engines.

    I’d love to see it happen though.

    1. In my dream the car was designed by Gordon Murray and was only eight inches tall.

  9. Lotus need to work a lot for regularly coming into Q2.

    RIP Sheridan Thynne.

    Not a bad decision by Honda to comeback in F1 just as a engine supplier as they did a great job when they were with Mclaren in the 90’s in the Turbo era.Mercedes had their own team,Mclaren won’t be getting that full support from them so why not create a new relationship with a old friend.

    1. Again, if they manage to get the 4 tenths (ish) out of KERS for next year they will be right in the mix

    2. Especially since they already have a 1L. V4 MotoGP engine they can add 2 more cylinders to and stroke a couple of mil . Of course they will need to detune it to for the lower RPM of F1 and the turbo boost.

  10. i have a feeling that team caterham could be the last team of Mike Gascoyne… if they don’t score points & again end up best of the new teams then he will have to move on and hand it over to someone who can make it happen. Tony Fernandes & Mike have been saying about scoring points from season 1 & if that is not achieved by end of season 3 then they will have to make way for new technical head and maybe hire fresh people in the team.

    1. I don’t agree. Two other teams entered F1 the same year as Lotus and neither of them are even contemplating making Q2.

      It’s slow going for sure, but anyone who came into F1 and expected quick results is going to be very disappointed.

      Lotus don’t need much time to make Q2, but every tenth they catch up makes the next bit even harder.

      I think Mike deserves a pat on the back.

      1. The problem here is, this team pre-maturely claims certain things and ends up nowhere near it. It just happened to be setting up certain expectations and then failing to achieve it.
        I remember, Mike said they will get 40-50 points, they will embarass established teams and stuff. They definitely deserve pat on the back considering what they have done till now but remember what they said, they make things unfair to themselves. The other day, I remember they again said that they will fight for podium for 2012, now I have no words for that.

        1. @mike @vickyy we can’t compare Lotus with HRT or Virgin as Lotus has got decent budget compared to the other teams, they hired experienced staff from rival F1 teams & some from Toyota F1. They have Renault engine & Redbull gearbox, other two teams have Cosworth engine & ordinary gearbox. The team claimed that it will score points & beat the established teams. i’m sure the team said all this as it believed it could score few points this season… as they have been spending money and they expected to get that performance… if they are not then technical structure needs to be changed.

        2. Gascoyne said they hoped to fight with Renault, Sauber, etc. at the end of the season. He did not claim they will or anything like that.

          Also it was Keith Saunt who “believed” that the team could score 30-40 points and that “seventh could be achievable”.

          1. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they beat Williams next year :)

    2. Ok, so Lotus are no RedBull, but give them a break. As stated they have at least progressed and fought a tough legal battle amongst all of this. Yes Mike Gascoyne does needs to control his enthusiasm (mouth), but at the end of the day, they are better than the other two start up teams and if it’s only due to their budget, it’s because they have something to sell :)

  11. A healty haul of Birthdays today. Make it one to remember to all of you – Happy Birthday for Clare MSJ, Dane, Rachel and Richard

    1. here here … happy birthday guys n girls :)

  12. Looks like we’ll get a Charles Pic to Virgin announcement on Sunday:

    “There will be an exciting #f1 announcement on Eurosport France this Sunday….guess what it will be!! @MarussiaVirgin”

    http://twitter.com/BenConsty/statuses/138931408763748352

  13. Good news, everybody!

    In October 2009, the International Olympic Committee announced that Rio de Janiero would be hosting the 2016 Olympic Games. As a part of the plans for the Olympic Park, the Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet at Jacarepaguá would be destroyed to make way for venues for the Olympics. However, I found this on Tilke’s Kazakhstan website, which suggests that the circuit might be reconfigured around the arenas instead of being destroyed outright.

    1. @prisoner-monkeys Nice find. Fingers crossed!

      1. @keithcollantine

        I can’t find it on Tilke’s primary site, and the Kazakhstan link (I still think it’s a weird place to host a website, but he does have a project in Kazakhstan, the Kazakhstan Motorcity, so I guess it makes sense) does say that planning permission was granted six years ago and I can’t find anything more recent, and satellite photos show that parts of the circuits have been demolished and built over (though I don’t know when the photos were taken).

        Jacarepaguá wasn’t the most exciting circuit in the history of racing circuits, but it does deserve more than the demise that is planned for it. It was always a playground for the turbo cars, and Interlagos is the superior circuit, but I fear it will be condemned to being a footnote in history.

        1. Jacarepaguá will disappear to give place for the Olympic Park. They will build another race track in Rio otherwise it seems they would end up with nowhere to drive.
          Some time ago there was a big project for an automotive complex in a town not far away from SP city but it’s been delayed probably because it was so big and the properties there are small farms.

  14. And in non-racing news, JJ Lehto’s boating accident trial has started today, and it’ll continue on Wednesday and Friday.

    Short video and some photos if you’re interested here: http://www.iltasanomat.fi/kotimaa/jarvilehdolta-vaaditaan-merkittavia-elatusapukorvauksia/art-1288429968484.html

  15. Robert Kubica’s manager announced official testing in lower tier single-seaters for January. Unfortunately only sources I have are in Italian and Polish

    http://www.italiaracing.net/magazine/2010157/index.asp

    http://f1.autoklub.pl/news/w-styczniu-testy-formula-renault,39597

    1. Interesting stuff, thanks.

      1. You’re welcome :) Always glad to drop something interesting.

    2. a Good news as well as a bad news. It’s almost certain he would not be on the grid of Bahrain…

      1. It’s very probable. On the other hand, things are revolving much around the expiration date of Renault contract. Things start to look like he’s not going back there ever.

      2. But it does seem to be wise for Kubica to get himself up to racing condition and speed in those lower-tier single seaters.

        I personally am glad to hear that apparently there is a plan for how to proceed; after those supposed tests in Oktober where cancelled, it was pretty clear he wouldn’t be ready for the start of 2012 yet. Great find!

      3. Then again, its still not that unlikely no F1 car will be on a grid in Bahrain anyway

    3. and here http://www.f1fanclub.pl/2011/11/pewnie-ciekawi-was-co-z-tym.html news about Kuba Giermaziak – polish driver from Porsche Supercup – he has been invited to test F1 car by two teams, dont know yet more detalis

      1. Read it too. Still, don’t expect him in F1 for at least next 3 years. He will probably compete in Porsche Supercup again next year and then move to GP2.

        1. i also dont expect it. but still orlen paid, and he will have it in CV :]

          1. but 2015 might realistic. I certainly have my fingers crossed for Kuba.

  16. I’m sure someone has already mentioned it but there was a program on the manufacturing of the new mclaren supercar with loads of great shots of the mtc and manufacturing techniques and all that jazz on bbc 2 last night. It was well worth a watch and can be watched still on iplayer

Comments are closed.